Member Info for Bonz1957

Yep. I'm one of those 'what you see is what you get' types. No bull**** from yours truly, i just tell it as it is, with no embellishments. If you think some of the things i've said are a little weird - especially when it comes to my investing style - then that's probably because i am weird!!! And like Choppy said about herself in one of her last posts to me, some of my bletherings may read like a private diary, but what the heck. I know where my strengths lie, which is why i leave all the tricky stuff to you mega-posters. I'll just join in when i have something interesting to say - so see you again in about 6 months lol!! Will save my last truffle for Aunty, i promise. ATB.

Yummy. My favourite, i'll take 2!!

I'm sure most of us are used to calls from Sky trying to get us to add to our package, take other services, or extra warranty on our sky hardware. But how many of us have received a call offering to save us money?? I wouldn't have believed it either, but it happened to my sister. She got a call suggesting she could remove some channels from her package that she didn't often view, and actually reduce her monthly subscription, which she did. Needless to say she was quite pleased!! While i'm happy for my sister, i'm not sure the way forward for Sky is to try and reduce peoples monthly expenditure. ATB.

My haven't you been a busy girl lately, 600 posts in a month!! Has someone super-glued your fingers to the keyboard or have you been confined to bed?? Most things are looking rosy with the FTSE above 6000, but THT struggling to stay above 80p. I've spoken to Nets a few times but, as i know my place in the pecking order, i'm wary of trying to converse with anyone with that number of posts to their name. I'll be unable to talk to you once you get to 2000 - which'll probably be next Tues!! My investment style is unique and i would be laughed out of any serious discussion. Remember i bought most of my shares back in the privatisation days of the 80's, bought some UT's in the 90's, and threw them all in a bankers box for a decade as my business took off. They only recently saw the light of day again, and it came as a pleasant surprise to find out ow much it was all worth. I only sell in a take-over and rarely buy anything, so i tend to answer the basic questions from people asking about RI's and divs etc, that the more experienced tend to avoid. Oh, and i do like taking apart people who post rubbish!! Dont mention the mother-in-law. Mine is giving us a lot of grief at the moment. She's losing the plot big time and withdrawing large sums from a cashpoint 2 or 3 times a week with no explanation as to where it is going!! She wants to go into care and use her money to fund it all - good job we don't need her money - but we can see the local council wanting to know where her money has gone, good job we live 200 miles away. We visit fortnightly and buy all of her shopping so are clueless as to where it is going. If we suggested taking her card and giving her enough to live on she'ld probably call the police!! We also lost a lot of plants in Devon during the winter, mainly Cordylines and Yuccas. They can easily be replaced, but the 20 foot tall Cordyline Australis at the head of my drive is looking very poorly and would leave a big hole it it was to keel over. Have a real dilemma with my Arsenal shares now that Kroenke is making an offer for the club. Do i sell and lose the connection with the club, or do i retain some of my shares - he has said he does not currently intend to go for 100% ownership - and risk ending up with a substantial sum which may be difficult to trade and may see no price change? Will probably exchange most for loan notes to avoid CGT and let the family keep one each so we can continue to attend AGM's. Used to be quite supportive of Celtic until last years Emirates Cup. When the visiting fans spent the entire game with their backs to the pitch pointing to the star on their shirts and ripping out the seats!! Thanks for Charlie, hope you're enjoying Anthony Stokes. With the family glued to the wedding tomorrow i should have a nice quiet day catching up with my paperwork. Have a great weekend, catch up with you later. ATB.

Or even 'Boardroom Battle'. Damn these fat fingers!! ATB.

British transport group National Express said three leading corporate governance advisory groups had urged shareholders to support the board against motions tabled by an activist investor. U.S. hedge fund Elliott Advisors, National Express's biggest shareholder with a 17.5 percent stake, had called for a boardroom shakeup and accused the company of failing to compete for new opportunities and damaging shareholder value. In a statement on Wednesday, National Express said ISS Governance Services, Glass Lewis & Co and PIRC had all recommended that their subscribers vote against Elliott's nominations for three new independent directors and vote for the two National Express directors who are seeking re-election. 'The board has gone through significant change recently with new CEO, CFO and chairman appointments which indicates the Nomination Committee's willingness to make governance changes. At this stage, an oppose vote is therefore recommended in respect of all three proposed candidates,' PIRC said. National Express's annual shareholder meeting takes place on May 10.

Maybe the profit warnings and downgrades are not as bad as the City was expecting. ATB.

Well an increase in the dividend and a rise in the yield from the current pitiful sub-1% would help. ATB.

Presume you meant 'Importance'!! 'Impotance' has completely the opposite meaning. What a difference an 'r' makes!! ATB.

Not bad going for only 9 months. In NG and BP you already have two of the best yielding and growth stocks there are, keep taking the divs as new shares and file away for retirement. While some of the penny shares, and the pump and dump specials, may give you headaches those two will plod along nicely in the background. Also worth looking at for the long term are the utilities, once again not spectacular, but then again not likely to let you down in a crisis. ATB.

Not sure where you got the idea that i may have been going to the BP AGM!! Only AGM i ever go to is the one at my beloved Arsenal. But with the recent announcement of the offer by Kroenke i may not be able to go to many more, although he has said he does not at the moment intend to aquire all of the issued share capital. Haven't you been a busy girl recently?? I've been so busy, and away from the pc so much, that i'm having trouble keeping up with your plethora of posts lol!! Has someone super-glued your fingers to the keyboard?? You should be outside enjoying the sun and preparing your garden for the summer months. I've spent the day at a M8's putting up a new fence and clearing 6 green bags of brambles from the bottom of his patch. I presume the sun does occasionally make it up to Scotland lol!! Glad you were able to track down the Gin, hope you're enjoying it. We managed to get a couple of bottles of their Vodka on a recent trip, thicker, creamier and slightly yellower than that quintuple distilled, 100 times filtered, pasturised, sanitised Smirnoff mass market offering. If you think HMV can be vitriolic try looking at PXS on a bad day. If you dare to disagree with their 'transformational' rhetoric you will be lucky to get out alive!! For all of us 'University Educated Types' who have the ability to spell and do the mental aritmatic to work out what each 0.1p rise is worth and what a div will be worth in £'s to us within nano-seconds of it's announcement, you can't beat the insight of someone with a City background (an East End barrow-boy in a suit) when it comes to charting analysis. What the flippin-heck is a candlestick,?? Ah well, time for me tea, and some trash TV while the kids are back from Uni. Wonder what it'll be today, the latest from the fascinating lives of Katie Price or Kerry Katona, or maybe Desperate Housewives. My life is so full!! ATB.

I trust with all of the good news coming out of Persimmon, and the building industry in general, that your careful week-by-week analysis has raised your target price yet again to maybe 450p by now, as 350p looks like a distant memory. IMHO this is at least a 500p share and will be well above that figure by the year end. As for LMR, complete basket case along with HMV, but if you are able to make money out of the ups and downs then best of luck to you. ATB.

This sp sliding along with TTNM's chances of being in the Champions League again. One Season Wonders!!

Very funny lol!!

How do you take your divs? As jamesmaggs says, taking them as new shares is a great way of building up a large holding over time. Do the maths, with a 6% yield the number of shares doubles every 12 years, over which time the sp is likely to have risen as well, so it's a win win situation. I have been investing since the mid 70's and have always taken divs as shares where possible, so now have substantial holdings in companies in which i only bought a few shares to begin with. I did a calculation a while back to prove the point to my son. If you were to buy 500 BP shares @ £6 - done before last years oil spill - an investment of £3000, and assuming a 6% yield and only a 5% uplift in the sp, then after 54 years he would have had 11,767 shares with a value of over £1million!!! Now you and i may not have 54 years - i certainly don't - but it proves the point. Needless to say he was impressed, and was persuaded to invest some of his hard earned money into BP shares at around the 330p level last June. He may not have seen much in the way of divs yet but has seen a 40% uplift in the sp, so thinks i'm some sort of investment guru. If only!! I've won more than i've lost over the years and am up overall, but there are some monumental blunders hidden in the archive paperwork!! ATB.

Nice spot. You must be well pleased with today's rise. More to come? ATB.

As always seem to be the case the news is all good, yet the sp goes in the other direction!! ATB.

Have just noticed that you are now nearly 100 ahead of me. My you have been a busy girl. Where do you find the time? Or is it that you are just a much quicker typist than what i am? Still owe you a long post answering some of your points from a while back, will get around to it eventually, i promise. ATB. x

That would have to be Sammy all the way for me. I'll take a member of the Rat Pack any day over some female songstress who has to sing with virtually no clothes on in order to sell her records!! God i'm showing my age. Bet you thought i would have plumped for the pretty young thing - just shows how wrong you can be lol!! Not sure i would describe Tesco as 'beloved' what with their poor sp performance of late. Hope Cadbury's parent Kraft took the loss as they are still in my bad books for forcing me to sell. Hope your poor mood is short lived, we don't want you to change to Stroppy2 now do we?? Ha Ha. You have my permission to raid your secret sweetie stash for a mood enhancing suger rush lol!! Will pop into Thorntons 2moro for my free egg, think i'll treat myself to the Marc de Champagne one if still in stock. Will also have to buy some Viennese Truffles - my all time fave - and anything else that takes my fancy. If i knew where to send it i'd get you an Easter Bunny to cheer you up. ATB. xx

It may not excite you, but a good div and the real prospect of steady sp growth is good enough for me. Testing 600p again, will it hold above or fall back again? The beauty about this one is that at the moment there is no competition. You may have a choice who supplys your leccy but it's still transmitted down NG's power lines, and it also owns and operates the high pressure gas transmission system in Britain. There aren't many monopolies left so lets get the most out of this one before some politician decides to split it up. ATB.